Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The Church’s Social Doctrine is at the heart of her mission to evangelise. Social Doctrine and Evangelisation was the subject of the address given by Cardinal Renato Raffaele Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, to Bishops taking part in the Study-Seminar for newly appointed bishops in mission territories organised by the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.
Speaking about the Compendium of Social Doctrine issued on October 2004 by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, Cardinal Martino recalled that chapter 2 “focuses on the ecclesiological aspect of social doctrine, its relationship with the Church’s mission, with evangelisation and the proclamation in temporal realities of salvation in Christ. The mission to serve proper to the Church, which consists in being a sign of the unity of the whole human race and sacrament of salvation, has among its tools also social doctrine indispensable for proclaiming the truth about Christ, the Church and mankind applying this doctrine to concrete situations”. Social doctrine therefore is not additional or marginal to Christian life it is part “of the Church’s mission to evangelise”.
From the close bond between the Church’s mission to evangelise and her social doctrine is derived the relationship between the ministry of the Bishop and social doctrine. In fact “in exercising their duty of teaching which is conspicuous among the principal duties of bishops-the Vatican II decree Christus dominus, n.12 affirms - bishops should show, moreover, that earthly goods and human institutions according to the plan of God the Creator are also disposed for man's salvation and therefore can contribute much to the building up of the body of Christ.”. The bishop is therefore the “principal teacher of the faith in a local Church” and he has the specific duty to “discern the events of history in the light of social doctrine”.
Card. Martino then affirmed that the “the most important and fitting duty of the bishop at the level of teaching and pastoral action must be constantly and primarily to defend and propose the principles of the Church’s social doctrine and to make them bear fruit”. These principles are valid for all men and women, but for Christians in particular who are encouraged to build a society worthy of man, more just and more fraternal. “These principles constitute a series of fundamental references to interpret society from the ethical point of view … They are the founding pillars of a social construction built according to the architecture proposed by Revelation and natural law in keeping with the geometry of fides and ratio by which it is integrally supported”.
The President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace reaffirmed the principles of “absolute dignity, centrality, intangibility of the human person” and commitment which concerns all citizens, to help to achieve the common good “the ethical wellbeing of social life in all its aspects for all its subjects and components”. Concluding his address the Cardinal stressed the necessity to evangelise the principle of subsidiarity, with which are in contrast forms of centralisation, bureaucratisation and assistencialism, excessive presence of the state and the public apparatus … and to evangelise the principle of solidarity which is “both ethic-social principle and virtue, authentic concretisation of justice.”
“Our munus-docendi- Cardinal Martino concluded - with the grave responsibility to exercise it in relation to these questions, will enable our faithful to understand and nurture, also at the spiritual level, the necessary relationship between faith, ethics and social action… The bishop is the first servant of his community. He must also be the first responsible for the diffusion of social doctrine in his diocese, a duty to which he must continually call all ecclesial subjects”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 22/9/2006; Righe 47 - Parole 681)
